As many of you know, Grant Wiggins suddenly passed away on Tuesday this week. He was a giant in the field of education, transforming the way many educators think about teaching, learning, thinking, and assessment. Grant’s work on Understanding by Design and Essential Questions have influenced our work as educators, and his willingness to engage in thoughtful debate with others of different viewpoints was a model we should all emulate.
As a tribute, we wish to excerpt a blog post by Grant titled, “Good versus great teachers: How do you wish to be remembered?” We remember you fondly, Grant.
Let me propose a set of distinctions – admittedly a bit glib – that may have value for sharpening our sense of what greatness is in teaching:
- Great teachers are in the talent-finding and talent-development business.
- Merely good teachers think they are mostly in the business of teaching stuff and helping students so that it gets learned.
- Great teachers are aiming for the future: are these students better able to succeed on their own after me and without me?
- Merely good teachers look mostly to the past: did they learn what I taught and did they do what I asked of them?
- Great teachers decide what not to teach to ensure lasting emphases and memories
- Good teachers cover a lot of ground while making the content as interesting as possible.
- Great teachers delight in smart-alecks and skeptics who clearly have raw but undirected talent.
- Good teachers are often threatened or bothered by smart alecks and skeptics.
- Great teachers know us better than we know ourselves, especially in terms of intellectual character.
- Good teachers merely know us as students of the subject.
- Great teachers get more from us than we thought possible to give
- Good teachers have high expectations and passions, and think that the rest is up to us.
- Great teachers sometimes bend the rules and fudge the grades on behalf of raw student talent.
- Good teachers uphold standards and grade according to the scores students earned.
For the rest of the post, see https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/good-vs-great-teachers-how-do-you-wish-to-be-remembered/
